Response to NIH RFI "Optimizing Funding Policies and Other Strategies"

Abstract

This document contains comments to be submitted to the NIH’s
RFI, NOT-OD-15-084, “Optimizing Funding Policies and Other Strategies to
Improve the Impact and Sustainability of Biomedical Research.”

Below are my comments to be submitted to the NIH’s RFI,
NOT-OD-15-084, “Optimizing Funding Policies and Other Strategies to Improve the
Impact and Sustainability of Biomedical Research.” Comments are due on May 17th
and can be submitted on the web at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/rfi/rfi.cfm?ID=42.

Comment 1

Key issues that currently limit the impact of NIH’s
funding for biomedical research and challenge the sustainability of the
biomedical research enterprise. We welcome responses that explain why these
issues are of high importance.

The current hypercompetitive environment is severely
inhibiting the NIH’s mission to seek fundamental knowledge about living
systems. Instead, it makes science a less attractive career for bright young
people, encourages practices that damage research reproducibility, and stifles
creativity and risk-taking. To effectively pursue its mission, the NIH must
alleviate this competition by making adjustments to the structure of the
workforce and individual laboratories.

Comment 2

Ideas about adjusting current funding policies to
ensure both continued impact and sustainability of the NIH-supported research
enterprise. We welcome responses that point to specific strengths or
weaknesses in current policies and suggest how we can build on or improve them.

Reducing competition for grants

Low current funding rates require PIs to spend a large
fraction of their time writing grants, diverting time that could be used for
other research activities. In order to better allocate limited funds, the NIH
must take into account both the number of personnel in a lab and the total
amount of funding it receives. The productivity of a PI should be evaluated
adjusting for both of these factors.

Where possible, guidelines for grant submission should be
simplified to reduce administrative burden.

Making science an attractive career choice

The biomedical research workforce is made up primarily of
trainees. While a trainee workforce provides cost-effective labor, it also
obfuscates the mission of the NIH (which focuses on research, not training),
creates a conflict between the interests of the laborers and the interests of
PIs (in terms of the balance between repetitive research tasks and professional
development activities), and ultimately dissuades bright young people from a
career in science (as a result of poor job prospects).

In order to create a sustainable research enterprise, a
career in science must be stable enough to encourage bright, ambitious students
to choose research over other professions that are currently far more
lucrative. To do this, the NIH must act to reform the structure of the
workforce. Since much data is lacking, this first requires an analysis of the
labor market both in and out of academia to be undertaken, and I applaud
existing efforts of the NIH in this regard. Next, the NIH should encourage a
stable workforce structure (with fewer temporary workers and more positions
appropriate for later career stages) by establishing funding mechanisms to
support permanent scientist positions and restricting graduate student and
postdoc numbers.

In addition to replacing some trainee positions with jobs
that provide appropriate compensation and benefits for scientific workers, the
existing training positions must be altered to maximize the benefit to the
trainee and to society. Implicit in calling this work “training” is the assumption
that the experience will benefit postdocs and students in the future. There is
little evidence to support this, especially as an increasing percentage of
trainees go on to non-research-related careers, and as the unemployment rate of
recent biomedical PhD holders has reached 4.7% (page 48 in http://www.faseb.org/Portals/2/PDFs/opa/2015/Sustaining%20Discovery%20Report%20Final.p\ndf),
above the national average for BS holders.

For example, in order to ensure that graduate students and
postdocs have the autonomy to pursue professional development opportunities and
creative research projects, they should not be treated as their PI’s
technicians. The current system of paying trainees from research grants
effectively renders students and postdocs inexpensive labor for PIs who have no
extrinsic incentive to provide their professional development. To avoid this,
all postdocs and graduate students should be supported on training grants and
fellowships.

Comment 3

Ideas for new policies, strategies, and other
approaches that would increase the impact and sustainability of NIH-funded
biomedical research.

The NIH should continue to invest in shared research
facilities and public repositories (such as preprint servers, plasmid and cell
banks, etc) to maximize efficient use of research funds. Incentives to
encourage publication of negative results should be explored. Furthermore, the
NIH should institute a cap on the APCs that can be paid to any publisher in
order to prevent the waste of public funds on an inefficient publishing system.
(http://svpow.com/2012/01/13/the-obscene-profits-of-commercial-scholarly-publishers/)